International Management MSc – University of Liverpool

After reading the article ‘ E-ethical leadership for virtual project teams’ I could connect the principles of Kantian ethics, motivation and trust and the Stakeholder Theory to the principles of conscious capitalism preached by MacKey and Sisodia (2013, pp. 56) in which a company should create value to all its stakeholders impacting positively on society through ethical behavior and sense of justice.Linking ethical behavior and culture can be paradoxical and we can clearly find companies that through unethical attitudes take advantage of collectivist countries such as India in which according to Hofstede one would be dependent on the boss in order to obtain power direction and would accept unequal rights due to power privilege. Examples of lack of business ethics are the sweatshops in India, in which companies such as Nike uses the term outsourcing to cover a real situation of exploitation. I’m not saying that being a collectivist society is the only reason for the existence of sweatshops but I’m saying that it could be one favorable factor since the population would act passively facing the situation as if it was their destiny.